So after a few successful weeks on Slimming World – where my weight was falling in a predictably tame way – I hit my first set-back.  A week where I had run 26 K, bounced happily on a gym-ball, cycled furiously and eaten cleanly but yet I did not lose any weight.

Obviously common sense says this is no big deal.  Bodies are biological systems and just because a formula calculates one value it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for variability or outliers (data points which don’t fit with the rest).  Any sensible person would chalk it up to ‘one of those things’ and move on.  But I like to dally in the mind-set of ‘Catastrophic Thinking’.  That is – F%#k the Diet.

In a self-sabotaging, self-destructive pattern of what can only be known as a self-pity chicken fest – I went out to dinner on Saturday night at an American Themed BBQ Grill place and consumed no less than half a chicken.  Ironically, I actually picked off most of the skin – a Slimming World rule – and measured the amount of BBQ sauce I applied and stuck to baked beans as my side dish (rather than the more alluring paprika fries).  However I followed this up with 3 scoops of the world’s creamiest and lushest ice cream which would just about break any diet but on Slimming World this amounted to 48 syns just for dessert (you are supposed to have 5-15 per day).  I then went to a music gig and jumped around heartily for 2 hours before my body utterly revolted at its abuse.  Suffice to say the rest of the evening was not pleasant.  Wind in both directions, nausea, bloated feeling, sweating profusely… I am an idiot.

All of this suffering could have been prevented if I had just listened to my body.  I was full after eating a quarter of the chicken.  I was stuffed after finishing off my plate but I still picked at my brothers unfinished spicy pork sausage.  By the time dessert came around I was beyond caring.  Diets don’t work anyway I told myself – even though I had conducted my own thorough analysis and lost weight on all the previous weeks.  I have made this mistake before (many times) and will no doubt make it again.  I am sure I am not alone.  I am sure this is why diets generally fail.  You are too restricted and then you binge and then you guilt eat and repeat.

But here today, I am going to forgive myself.  I am only a mammal trying to put fat on for the winter, even if that winter never comes.  And in the search for silver linings – 18 months ago I am sure I would have been able to eat that meal with no stomach rebellion – which is a sign that perhaps physically I am adapting more than I thought.

Additionally I am never eating meat again.

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With the exception of bacon.